Guilty pleasures - Games

[Avilan the Grey]

So... I have been enjoying the flu this week, so almost no Overwatch (Brain not worky well on high fever. No tactical skills OR reflexes). So I have been slipping back into a game that I can play short bursts of, doesn't require any real skill and is yet very entertaining: Saints Row 3.

I even started over.


Anyone has a go-to guilty pleasure for just rinsing your brain out and enjoy yourselves?

[factotum]

I wouldn't call Saints Row 3 a guilty pleasure, myself, because it's a darned good game. The phrase "guilty pleasure" implies a game you might play that isn't very good, or has some other reason why you might not want to admit to playing it.

That being the case, I honestly can't think of one...usually, if I play a bad game, it's because I wasn't expecting it to be bad and I stop playing it quite rapidly.

[Vitruviansquid]

Most of the games thatI dislike on some principle I do not play.

But I caught myself logging into Rift long after I realized it wasn't a game I liked just because I enjoyed staring at my character's ass.

There are a few times I played games I don't really like because the music was good, too, but none I can remember off the top of my head.

That counts as guilty pleasure, right?

[Spore]

Hearthstone with net decks. Not having to think about deck building is great. Or my 450th hour of Skyrim. Pointless since I know the game in and out and have done 95 percent of all quests.

I prefer playing a few favorites instead of goid AND fun new games which I own but never plau. Like Tyranny or PoE.

[Eldan]

Fallen London. It's a Free to Play game that shows many of the worst aspect of such games: tedious grinding for resources that never stops, the ability to pay real world money to do it faster, hours and weeks of grinding, entire storylines behind pay walls, items you can only get by literally weeks of grinding one thing over and over, repetition, and more grinding.

But the writing and world building are so good.

[danzibr]

I play games from my youth which might be considered bad by today's standards. I'm talking NES and Genesis btw.

Oh and I also play some phone games.

[Hunter Noventa]

I enjoy Dynasty Warriors games more than I probably should.

[Cespenar]

Back when I had time, I had some guilty pleasures, like Counter Strike (1.6 though) and DotA.

I managed to purge myself of them when I got a job, though. Now I try to play more games with less time on each. Maximize my experiences. Time engineering. Other buzzwords. :smalltongue:

[danzibr]

I enjoy Dynasty Warriors games more than I probably should.
True, true. And the Gundam version, and the Zelda version. Looking forward to the Berserk version.

[Hunter Noventa]

True, true. And the Gundam version, and the Zelda version. Looking forward to the Berserk version.

I hope they make a new Gundam version soon. But the Zelda version is amazing and I want to see the new Fire Emblem version. Less enthused about the Berserk version.

I would LOVE to see a Disgaea Musou though, I mean, you already have minions that canonically explode!

[gooddragon1]

Team fortress 2 quickscoping 2 fort battlements. Before the updates anyway. Particularly the danger shield one. People have to run all the way over to my side to kill me. I just have to leave spawn.

[Avilan the Grey]

Speaking of Saints Row 3. Actually used the Wiki for the first time (I intend to actually finish it this time)... I find it a little weird that the Criminal has 30% more hitpoints than the Bulldog. Also I found out the Blade is actually identical in stats to the Infuego. Cool, I think I'll use that one instead.

About phone games: I played Simpsons Tapped out for a looong time. Now I only play Pokemon Go. Still.

[Sariel Vailo]

Lol my guiltiest pleasure games killer instinct I bought the Xbox 1 just for the sounds,the nostalgia

[spectralphoenix]

It's more of a guilty pleasure metagame, but every so often I get it into my head to try and fill out my Steam achievement stats. It's a bit silly, nobody sees my completion percentage, and nobody would care if they did, but I figure if the worst that happens is I replay some games I didn't give enough attention the first time through, it's not so bad. Currently replaying Fallout: New Vegas (far from a bad game) and just hit 61/75. Mostly just have various ending quests and healing a stupid amount of damage with food left. And playing the whole game over again in Hardcore mode.

Though I have been driven to finish a few games that might have been better forgotten in the name of completionism (Deponia, ugh).

[Adrastos42]

Fallen London. It's a Free to Play game that shows many of the worst aspect of such games: tedious grinding for resources that never stops, the ability to pay real world money to do it faster, hours and weeks of grinding, entire storylines behind pay walls, items you can only get by literally weeks of grinding one thing over and over, repetition, and more grinding.

But the writing and world building are so good.

Have you tried Sunless Sea? Same world, same great writing, but as you pay for it upfront it doesn't have the free to play annoying bits.

(Or so I understand, I've played sunless sea but not fallen london)

[Winter_Wolf]

Not sure if it's really "guilty" but I used to play Internet reversi on WinXP against the highest tier players. I doubt very much I was a high tier player and lost often, but when I was winning the sheer number of people who would rage quit rather than take a loss was appallingly funny. It was quite pleasing to see these people bounce at the first sign of trouble even though they probably could have pulled out a victory if they'd had a little more integrity.

I actually really miss that game and the virtual pinball.

[Sajiri]

Uhh does Blade and Soul count? Specifically just levelling characters through the story. Ive been doing that a lot lately and modding it with different costumes/hairstyles and such.

I guess another one is, um, Magical Diary. I've never really been able to get into visual novels but that one specifically is one I just adore for when Im not feeling so well and just want something easy. For what looks like a girl's version ripoff of Harry Potter, its actually surprisingly deep.

I dont really count Saints Row as a guilty pleasure cause I also think it's a great game :p Except my go to SR game is 2, rather than 3.

[Rodin]

I just discovered one for me - Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Wait! Stop brandishing the pitchforks - I know it's a really good game.

Thing is, based on my commonly expressed opinions around here I should HATE this game.

Theme park open world - check.
Integrated mandatory crafting system - check.
Resource gathering - check.
Quest hubs full of NPCs standing around with exclamation marks on their head - check.
Bear Ass fetch quests - check.

All of those are things I've come to detest in any game. Worse, it's a game where your primary weapon is ranged and it uses a controller, another peeve (I only ever play FPS games on PC).

And yet...And yet...

It works. The crafting and hunting feels justified, and are so well done it doesn't even feel like crafting. The fetch quests have neat twists (like the animals you're hunting being harmless, but the area is patrolled by giant robots). The resource gathering is fast, and entirely limited to really basic ingredients that you're constantly using so it doesn't feel like a chore.

So, I'm gonna eat a little crow here. Crafting systems and resource gathering aren't always a detriment. They just have to be done really well.

[danzibr]

Bear Ass fetch quests - check.
Wait. You fetch bear asses?

[Rodin]

Wait. You fetch bear asses?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwentyBearAsses

Standard warnings apply.

[Hiro Protagonest]

So open-world = guilty pleasure.

Terraria is my guilty pleasure!

[danzibr]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwentyBearAsses

Standard warnings apply.
Ha, classic. And uh-oh, I find myself falling into the depths...

[Rodin]

So open-world = guilty pleasure.

Terraria is my guilty pleasure!

More a specific type of open-world, pioneered by Far Cry 2/3 and Assassin's Creed 2+. You enter an area, find the designated tall thing and climb it to get a map. You get icons all over your map telling you of mini-games all over the place. There's races (car and horse, respectively), there's parkour puzzles, there's bandit camps to destroy, etc. All throughout the world are collectibles that do nothing but pad the game time. It serves as a way to fill out the world without putting in meaningful content and reduces what should be a living breathing place into a theme park.

As I've explored the game more, I've found Horizon to be less guilty of this than I initially thought it would be. It still hits some of them, but it's nowhere near as aggressively mini-game focused as the other games I've played that use it.

[Kitten Champion]

I played a lot of Spelunky. Not so much now really, but it took me a while to not be fidgeting with it on my Vita whenever I got a moment.

While it really is a fun game which remains so even when its frustrating, but I kind of procrastinated using it and that's made it somewhat guilt-ridden.

[Avilan the Grey]

I just discovered one for me - Horizon: Zero Dawn.

That one and Red Dead are the only games in history i hate not having being ported to PC.

[Cespenar]

More a specific type of open-world, pioneered by Far Cry 2/3 and Assassin's Creed 2+. You enter an area, find the designated tall thing and climb it to get a map. You get icons all over your map telling you of mini-games all over the place. There's races (car and horse, respectively), there's parkour puzzles, there's bandit camps to destroy, etc. All throughout the world are collectibles that do nothing but pad the game time. It serves as a way to fill out the world without putting in meaningful content and reduces what should be a living breathing place into a theme park.

Ayup. That's Granny's Original Ubisoft Game Recipe.

[Eldan]

Ayup. That's Granny's Original Ubisoft Game Recipe.

Ah, yes. GOUGR.

[mr-mercer]

I first got the PS2 Altered Beast game from a friend on my 12th birthday (kind of an obscure one, probably because it wasn't released in America). From an objective standpoint, I can't say it's very good: the story's hard to follow, the voice acting and dialogue are at that point where they aren't bad enough to be funny, but are too bad to take seriously, and the combat isn't bad but is a little clunky. Even so, I think I'd call it one of my favourites of all time, simply because I have yet to find a better game that is specifically about being a werewolf/similar shapeshifter.

Some parts of the soundtrack are pretty awesome, though.